


Battle

by Toejones



Series: Remembering [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Amputation, Awesome Sam Wilson, BAMF Bruce Banner, Bombs, Canon Temporary Character Death, Choking, Everyone Is Alive, Flashbacks, Gen, Giant Robots, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Not Age of Ultron Compliant, Past Brainwashing, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Tony Stark Fucked Up, Violence, WWII, bull shit sicence, this is over 50 percent violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2782157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toejones/pseuds/Toejones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve sucked in a breath, sharp, dusty, and copper-flavored, through his teeth. His body twitched to follow, screaming for him to dive and hold Bucky in his arms, but he stopped himself. Forced himself to stay put.</p><p>“Do it,” Steve said to the team. “Blow it up, I can keep Ultron in the building.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyy, so I just finished the first semester of my junior year of college. So I've had zero time to write this. But here this is :D and I'm on Christmas break so hopefully I can get some more done soon.

 

All Steve could hear was a high pitched, continuous note not unlike his long-gone tinnitus.

It took him a moment to realize that his head had just been slammed through an exposed beam in the smashed wall behind him, and another moment to remember that the crushing pressure on his throat was a hand he was getting too weak to keep fighting off. His legs were swinging freely in empty airspace; his toes going numb in his boots.

Steve pried desperately at the fingers wrapping tighter and tighter around his throat as his vision started to go dark around the edges again, but the metal was far stronger than even he was. The pressure building in his head was reaching unbearable levels this time as he felt his diaphragm desperately heave against the lack of air. His extremities were all staring to lose feeling and the pads of his fingertips kept slipping off the slick metal.

Then his throat finally closed up tight enough it couldn’t even contract. A blind rush of panic kicked his heart into overdrive, the sound of it pulsing in his ears. He kicked his legs out in a blind swing, throat muscles working fruitlessly on a grunt of pain when his knee smacked into sharp, unforgiving metal. His jaw couldn’t even open with the fingers so high on his throat. He strained every muscle in his body to fight off the growing darkness and pain, but was only rewarded by the capillaries beginning to burst in his eyes.

His earpiece and subsequently all of his ability to communicate with the team had been lost something like half an hour earlier, leaving him stranded in the middle of unfamiliar territory fighting a machine every bit as strong as him (and then some). Between panicked, flickering thoughts of terror and escape, he vaguely prayed to God that someone remembered his location and was coming to get him (very) soon.

 “Your oxygen level is approaching critically low levels, Captain,” Ultron said, its body whirring as Steve kicked and pulled weakly at anything he could reach; his vision more black than color now. “Be prepared for unconsciousness in twenty seconds.”

 

_“Tony, do you really think this is a good idea?” Natasha asked, running her fingertips along the crisp blueprints laid out on the coffee table. Her brows were creased together tightly as she studied the design.  “This seems a lot like what the hellicarriers were supposed to do back in 2014.”_

_“Nah,” Tony waved her off and took a sip of his beer, “This guy was done by me. He only identifies people who have already shown that they’re threats. It’s not premature at all.”_

_“I can’t believe you wouldn’t let any of us have access to this information before now,” Clint snapped from his perch on the couch. “What are its criteria for elimination?”_

_“That’s a complicated question,” Tony replied, eyes cutting to the side._

_“Which I expect you’ll be able to answer,” Steve spoke up, voice low and dangerous to his own ears. As he stared Tony down, Steve saw Thor shift and lean across the table out of the corner of his eye._

_“Well, uh,” Tony muttered, glancing at his fidgeting hands, “One feature is that if it identifies an irregularity in a humanoid target’s DNA, it tries to keep the body as intact as possible for research purposes so he can adapt to kill-”_

_“Tony, when you phrase it like that it sounds absolutely awful,” Bruce muttered, rubbing at his forehead._

 

“Shut your eyes!” Sam shouted over the whirring of Ultron. It sounded so distant and unreal, Steve thought maybe it was over the open comm line, but then he remembered that his earpiece had been lost. The room was suddenly full of a fast, high-pitched beeping. “Wanda, it’s on!”

Steve complied as best as he could manage, slamming his eyes shut with difficulty and grasping at Ultron’s forearms with what strength he had left. He still saw the bright flash of red light and heard the odd, screeching metal sound that meant Sam had set off one of Tony and Wanda’s specially constructed tag-team bombs. They were meant to work with radiation and Wanda’s powers to stun the robots’ sensors for brief periods of time for escape.

Before he could gain footing, Steve was crumpling to the ground along with a heap of metal on top of him. He couldn’t manage to roll it off of himself with his shaking arms and impaired vision, but a healthy kick from Sam’s steel-toed boot sent Ultron rolling sluggishly across Steve’s torso then to the ground with a clang and the sound of shattering tile. Steve’s chest expanded immediately as the weight left, leaving him gasping for air through the smoke and dust with fingers fluttering delicately at his crushed throat.

“Building’s coming down, Cap!” Sam panted. Steve felt a hand wrap around his forearm and haul him up, not giving him any time to recover. Sam was clumsy in his radiation-proof gear, but no less strong, and managed to maneuver it so Steve was up and standing, even as dizzy and heavy as Steve was.

Steve steadied himself using a palm against Sam’s chest as his vision came back. The ground was tilting violently and Steve couldn’t have said if it was reality or his own disorientation. He eyed Ultron where it was laying prone on the shattered tile floor.

“We don’t know how long that’s gonna last this time, come on!” Sam said, referring to the adaptive feature Ultron had been using to regain the upper hand over and over again. Steve nodded weakly, still unable to speak, and released the grip on Sam’s suit.

Sam ran towards the gaping hole in the wall three rooms over and flung himself out into a brief fall before his wings expanded and carried him up and out of sight. Steve counted the seconds for Sam to get into position and then he was running too, stumbling a little over uneven ground before leaping into the air. His shoulder caught the edge of the wall on his jump; he hadn’t been running in as straight of a line as he thought. A chunk of concrete broke off and began to plummet with him.

There was a terrifying, spiraling freefall for too long before Sam adjusted to the flawed trajectory and caught him around the waist. The special hookups on the back of Steve’s suit snapped automatically into place with the ones on Sam’s front, pulling them flush with a loud click. The ground was coming in quick with the extra weight added too late, and Sam had to pull up hard to avoid splattering both of them against the pavement. The motor in his suit whirred angrily at them; even Tony Stark’s tech found gravity a worthy adversary.

They landed something like five miles from the building after an uneventful rest of the flight, dust following their trail for a while before dissipating as a cloud. The distance flew by quickly at Sam’s speed; a three minute flight at most. The team was waiting for them outside a decimated supermarket in the suburbs, standing near and methodically disassembling a small pile of robots.

“Steve!” Tony greeted, running up and desperately gripping Steve’s shoulders and the sides of his neck, looking him over.

Tony’s metal-covered hand went automatically to investigate the bruises on Steve’s throat and his soot-stained brow creased dramatically over his wide eyes at the sight. There was a cut bleeding sluggishly on his forehead and his helmet piece was nowhere to be seen, leaving his dirty face exposed. The lights on his suit were flickering like irregular static, leaning more towards off than on.

“You went offline and we thought… We… I…” he swallowed thickly, “Are you alright?” his ridged thumb brushed over the bruises rapidly purpling on Steve’s jaw and neck.

Steve nodded weakly, his head feeling heavy, and pushed Tony’s hand away. “Yeah. In place,” he croaked, voice coming out barely audible. “Team, status?” he coughed and rubbed at his sore eyes.

“Bruce is stuck in human form somewhere safe,” Natasha replied, limping up to Steve with a hand pressed to her ribs. She brushed her other hand briefly over his shoulder in greeting. “Ultron used the Hulkbuster to really let him have it. He’s gonna be fine when he wakes up, though. Everyone else is still in the fight,” she hesitated and licked her bloody lips before falling silent.

“Hawkeye is on top of the bell tower,” Thor spoke up softly from where he was sitting on the pile of destroyed robots. “He is keeping a watch over the battlefield,” he pointed up. Steve could barely make out a waving hand in the distance on the roof of a local school.

“That bomb should stun Ultron for at least a couple more minutes,” Tony said, shouldering back past Natasha, “Did you get the bombs planted up high, Birdbrain?”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded, yanking the radiation hood down off his head, “Right where you told me to.”

“Good. You, Flash, did you get the other levels set to go?” Tony turned to Pietro who nodded quickly.

“Yeah man, it’s all set. Gotcha covered. All’a the buildings are blinkin’ like a Christmas tree.”

“Good. Is the main one ready to detonate?” he asked Wanda.

“Yes, Stark,” she replied tersely. “I hope this works and we can undo what you’ve done here by building that thing in the first place.”

“It should- _will-_ work,” Tony replied, shoulders going stiff, presumably against the guilt. He started to pace as he thought out loud, looking every bit as frazzled and beaten down as Steve was feeling. “If we detonate the little bombs and the main bomb at the same time while he’s out, he won’t be able to shift his form to accommodate the damage to the exposed non-adamantium parts, which will let the five buildings’ worth of rubble break him apart. This kind of radiation, as we all know, can permeate adamantium, and this much of it will hopefully be enough that instead of storing it as power, he overloads, at least for a short time- hopefully long enough we can recover his body, disassemble it, and deprogram him. Wanda, you know what you need to do with your…” he made a vague, fluttering hand gesture, “to make sure that happens, right?”

“Of course,” she snapped. “What do you take me for?”

“Sorry,” Tony snapped back, not sounding sorry in the slightest, “but you’re the only one who seems to be able to _do_ anything to him and that’s a lot of pressure. _Excuse me_ for making sure you know what to-”

“What are you waiting for?” Steve interrupted hoarsely, glancing at the building towering in the distance and hoping Ultron wasn’t in the process of waking. He was the only one allowed near the radiation-leaking reactor for longer than a minute or two and didn’t think he had the energy to take Ultron down like that again. Plus, to make matters worse, they were running low on the smaller stun bombs and Wanda was looking pale and battered; her gait crooked.

“Well…” Tony rubbed the back of his head, “We…  We can’t… Yet. We’re missing someone.”

“What? Who?” Steve took a headcount and (minus Bruce) everyone on the offensive team was within sight.

“It’s…” Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Steve, it’s Barnes.”

“What?” Steve felt his blood run cold and took a stumbling step towards her. “He’s supposed to be at base with Fury and Maria running evac and strategy,” his voice was like fire in his throat. Natasha grimaced and met his eyes for a brief moment before looking away.

“He disobeyed orders,” Sam said. He scratched at a cut on his cheek. “He was running evac on an apartment building on the East side when we heard you go offline, and he had already run off into ground zero after you before we knew he was missing. He tossed his earpiece as soon as we noticed so we couldn’t track and stop him.”

“Shit,” Steve cursed and ran a hand over his face. His bare fingers shook and came back grimy with blood and dirt. “ _Shit_. I’m going back in,” he held out his hand for his shield, collected from a robot at some point by Thor, who had it strapped to his arm.

Thor stood and descended the pile of robots carefully. He was limping slightly and his cape had gone missing, but he looked better than anyone else. He handed it over to Steve with only a brief hesitation, maintaining eye contact.

“Your injuries give me pause, Steven,” he said solemnly as he let go of the shield.

“I’m fine,” Steve whispered.

“If you say so, my friend. Please take great care and come back whole,” he clapped a hand very gently to the side of Steve’s face and smiled grimly, crinkling a cut under his eye. Steve nodded with a fragile smile of his own and moved away.

“Cap, you can’t go back out there,” Tony said, grabbing Steve’s wrist tightly as he tried to walk away, the grooves between the metal plating pinching at his skin. “We have to blow it up, _now_ , before Ultron recovers. I only made one of those heavy dose stunners and we can’t afford to have him move out of range of the big one.”

 “Tony,” Steve muttered, eyes flickering between Tony’s. “You know I can’t leave him.”

“Steve, even you can’t survive this much radiation,” Tony was starting to genuinely plead- a rare sight. His shoulders slumped towards Steve and his grip on Steve’s wrist tightened. “This is not the time to add another crazy stunt to your Who-Saves-Who scoreboard romance!”

“Tony is right, Steve. You can’t go back in there,” Natasha rallied, a hysterical note sneaking into her usually level tone.

 _‘He’s not worth it,’_ she didn’t say. _‘You’re more important,’_ she didn’t say.

Steve swallowed once, a dry click in his sore throat, and couldn’t bring himself to meet Natasha’s wild eyes again; he didn’t like what he read there. He cleared his throat so he could speak up and address the group.

“If I’m not back in three minutes from touchdown, just blow it up,” he said with finality, putting his shield on his back and wrenching his wrist away from Tony. He turned his hunched back to Natasha, who he could still hear breathing unevenly. “I’d appreciate a ride, Sam. If you can stomach it.”

“…Yeah. Yeah, alright…” Sam scrubbed a hand over his jaw “Alright- Here,” he placed an earpiece into Steve’s hand. “You better call me to come get your ass before the three minute mark.”

As soon as the earpiece was secure in Steve’s ear, Sam pulled his protective hood back down, grabbed Steve around the waist, and took off.

“Steve!” Clint shouted, coming in staticky through the earpiece. “Dude, hey, make it back, alright? You keep these people sane.”

“I’ll try,” Steve replied over the wind.

“I’m gonna be _so pissed_ if you di- _sssscchhh_ ,” Clint cut out on the last word as Sam started to get into the irradiated airspace.

Steve looked down; getting an aerial view of the landscape he hadn’t bothered with on the way out.

The giant reactor was slammed into the asphalt of the main road, wedged into a perfectly shaped crater by Hulk what felt like hours ago, before he’d been taken out. It was glowing faintly green, illuminating the immediate area eerily through the dust from already collapsed buildings. Steve could see blinking red lights through the fire on the buildings that still stood.

Sam landed clumsily at the base of the building he’d rescued Steve from, skidding and nearly falling on the uneven, craggy ground. The attachments between them retracted with a soft click and Sam took a step back.

“Good luck,” he said, muffled through the hood. He clapped a hand to Steve’s shoulder and smiled warily, “You have less than three minutes.”

Steve offered a brief salute and took off running before he could watch Sam take off. He picked the central building that Ultron was currently in; knowing he only got one chance to guess Bucky’s location correctly. He took the cracked stairs three at a time at top speed, racing up and keeping an ear out for any noises that could signal movement.

“Cap, my sensors are picking up a weak heat signature on the eighth floor, east corner,” Tony said, verifying Steve’s guess. His voice barely crackled in over the speaker in Steve’s ear. “Radiation is messing with my stuff, but that should be pretty accurate. Looks like it’s moving.”

“Ten-Four,” Steve said, quickly darting onto a different path to follow Tony’s directions and avoid a hallway on fire.

“Good luck,” Tony said.

What remained of the eight flights of stairs flew by in a blur, only his heartbeat and the ticking clock in his head to spur him on, and Steve skidded into a hallway out of the stairwell after the eighth. Dust covered the brown carpeting, revealing a set of boot prints that disappeared like someone had been lifted.

“Bucky?” he called, cupping his hands around his mouth. He coughed around the bad air and the yell died in his crushed throat.

Steve got his answer in the form of Ultron barreling through a wall to his right, exploding concrete and drywall over him. He managed to get his shield in front his face, but he was thrown back with the force of the blast to land in a pile of rubble. He scrambled up without a thought and broke into a sprint after it. Bucky would have to wait.

“CODE BLACK!” he screamed, voice cracking, as he ran through the holes Ultron was leaving in the walls. Minus the support the walls offered, the ceiling was already groaning without the explosions to help it along.

The building was going to come down hard.

“GET OUT OF THERE!” two or three people shouted at once, mixed with a few voices yelling his name and heavy static. He ignored the order without so much as a wince and continued running after Ultron, unclipping one of the last of the smaller bombs Tony had made from his belt.

“No!” he panted as he vaulted a desk and turned a sharp right to follow Ultron through another humanoid hole in the wall, “I have to keep it in the building!”

“Steve, you’ll die!” someone that sounded like Maria shouted as Steve rounded a sharp corner.

“I don’t c-” the words died as his mind went blank. He skidded to a quick halt, his boots squealing on the tile, wet from a broken water pipe above his head.

Ultron stood in the center of the room, legs wide and head bowed under the spray of water. His sensors scanned Steve slowly, red light bathing him and refracting through the dust to make the whole room glow. Steve knew to move- knew the sensors were judging the best way to cleanly get him comatose and get out of bomb-range at this very moment in time.

But Steve couldn’t move.

Clutched in one of Ultron’s hands was Bucky’s throat. Bucky wasn’t struggling the same ineffective way Steve had been; he was dead still and looking blue in the face, his thick eyelashes brushing his cheeks. His metal arm was hanging half off, the raw end of the flesh underneath exposed and bloody from the rending. Blood dribbled from one corner of his mouth and from his nose to drip over the ridges of Ultron’s fingers and into the water below.

Bucky hadn’t had Sam to distract Ultron like Steve had, and Steve was too late.

 

_Just a little further and he’d have it; he’d have Bucky’s hand. He was strong enough to pull him up with one hand now- he could save Bucky, if he could just get a little closer but-_

 

“The bait was successful,” Ultron said before it threw Bucky aside carelessly. There was a sickening thud and screech as a metal desk stopped Bucky’s trajectory and skidded along the floor.

 

_Just like that he was whipped away, fading into a tiny speck before Steve could even register that they were both screaming-_

Steve sucked in a breath, sharp, dusty, and copper-flavored, through his teeth. His body twitched to follow, screaming for him to dive and hold Bucky in his arms, but he stopped himself. Forced himself to stay put.

“Do it,” Steve said to the team. “Blow it up, I can keep Ultron in the building.”

“Threat imminent,” Ultron said, turning to the west and starting to move away. Before it could gather the energy required to burst into super speed, Steve ran at it and tackled it from behind. It stayed standing without even a stumble and the head rotated to stare him down. Heat began to radiate off its body and Steve ground his teeth against it. He pressed the button on top of the bomb still clutched in his hand.

“DO IT!” he yelled.

“Cap-”

 “Just wait a sec-”

“Steven, you are-”

“No, no, no, wait-”

“Steve, you can’t-”

 “NOW!” Steve shouted. His flame-retardant clothing was starting to smoke and the beeping was getting faster.

“But Steve,” Sam’s voice broke and then there was complete radio silence.

“I SAID NOW!” Steve yelled again, voice cutting in and out as he was wheeled around, holding on tight as Ultron began moving through the building at a breakneck speed trying to escape. “Just do-”

The stunner bomb went off just as Steve slammed his eyes shut against it, exploding into tiny pieces of shrapnel and blasting him and Ultron to opposite sides of the room. Steve felt a thousand sharp pains on his right side as shrapnel made its way into the holes already in his uniform from the rest of the battle. His shield flew from his arm, wrenching his shoulder in its socket, and something glass broke in the direction it went.

Steve landed hard and slid through the water on the floor until he hit a wall. His head, helmet long lost, slammed into something metal and his thoughts blanked for a second or two. Then the world came to a standstill, leaving Steve to come to wheezing and unable to lift his head. He peeled his eyes open to find himself staring at an unfamiliar room, floors and floors down from where they’d left Bucky.

There was silence for a solid five seconds before the static in his ear came back and Tony’s voice came through.

“sschh- ffirmative, Ca- sschh”

The building shook violently. Steve could feel every boom below as the bombs detonated the individual floors and could hear the others exploding around them in the other buildings.

“Threat imminent,” Ultron said from some distance away, red light bathing the area in Steve’s peripheral vision as its scanners switched on, mostly unaffected by the bomb’s detonation without Wanda’s help. “Evacuation now.”

Then the building crumbled. It was instant, like punching through a wall of dried sand. Pieces of cement, pipe, drywall, and metal rained down as the floor gave out from under them, and he fell.

 

_The floor had been ripped out from under him, leaving him disoriented and reeling._

_He was cold, colder than he thought he’d ever felt before, but the shivers ripping down his spine weren’t from the temperature. His mind had gone as blank as the snow he was staring at._

_Footsteps were fast approaching before he’d registered any time passing, crunchy over the top layer of thin ice that had formed since the snow stopped falling. Steve kept his head down, stared down between his knees and focused on the individual flakes that stuck to his pants, unmelting on the frozen fabric of his uniform._

_“Cap, what happened?” Jim asked, footsteps picking up pace as he broke into a jog. “Why are you sitting like that?”_

_“Are you injured?” Monty, suddenly at Steve’s side, grabbed his chin and jerked it up to face him. “Gabe was quite unclear about why he left you behind- said something about a collapse into the snow.”_

_He turned Steve’s head to both sides slowly as someone Steve didn’t bother to identify unstrapped the shield from his arm and pulled it away. His arm fell limply into the powdery chill without the support. Monty made a low hum deep in his throat and clucked his tongue._

_“You have quite a bump on that super-skull of yours and your eyes are unfocused.”_

_“I j-” Steve choked, trying to reassure Monty that he was uninjured. As soon as his throat and jaw unclenched, there was nothing to keep the hot tears that welled up in his eyes away. His chin snapped down to hide it, knocking Monty’s hands away. He stared at the blank white that came up to his waist where he was sitting in it as Monty made a startled noise and called something over to the others._

_“Captain?” he muttered, kneeling._

_“Uhh… boys, where is Sarge?” Dum-dum added obliviously from a few feet away, scanning the area._

_“I don’t know!” Gabe replied, exasperation edging into his voice. “Cap and I jumped off and he wasn’t there. Cap just collapsed like that- I couldn’t get anything out of him.”_

_Steve couldn’t find the words. Not one word to say came to mind except Bucky’s name, and even that couldn’t force its way past the lump in his throat. His throat was working, trying to fight down the lump and the tears, but each only seemed to get stronger the more he resisted._

_So he looked up. He could do that much; could let his men read the answer on his face if he couldn’t say it. He set his jaw and stared up at them, focusing his eyes on Dum Dum._

_Realization dawned quickly from man to man, each face falling in turn as they looked down at the open grief on his face. Everyone was silent, absolutely deadly silent, and it was suffocating because Steve couldn’t say anything either and the woods were devoid of life and sound as well._

_It was the kind of quiet that someone could describe as being able to hear a butterfly’s wings beat or a single snowflake falling, but none of that could be heard no matter how hard Steve listened. His breath shuddered as the silence closed in to suffocate him; a single cloudy breath breaking off into the air and filling the space. It broke the spell and Steve couldn’t take the absence of so much anymore._

_It came out loud and sudden to compensate, two birds fluttering out of a tree behind him:_

_“He fell- the train- I couldn’t-” he sobbed and heard his own desperation echo back off the solid wall of rock nearby. Too weak to resist it, his forehead fell back to his knees. “I couldn’t,” he repeated._

_“Oh, Cap,” Gabe breathed, “I wouldn’t have left you, I woulda…”_

_Tears were welling up in Gabe’s voice, too, but Steve knew he wouldn’t let them manifest. Most men didn’t get into the business of crying over every fallen friend in a war. Steve briefly and morbidly wondered if he would cry for Gabe should he die, and when he decided that he might not he felt like a terrible person, which punched a fresh sob from his chest._

_“We have to get you out of the snow,” Dernier whispered, almost unintelligible for his accent. “Sitting and freezing won’t help Barnes now.”_

_Steve nodded shakily and let Monty and Dernier pull him up by the wrists. Snow fell in great clumps off his uniform and onto the ground around him. As his feet tried to struggle to the top layer, the weight of it clutched at his boots and-_

 

-a heavy pressure pulled at his ankles. Sharp pain followed and he managed a weak groan as he felt the bones in his ankles grind.

“Steve,” someone said, panic making their voice crack. “Steve, can you hear me? It’s B-”

“Bucky,” Steve groaned, reaching out and hitting something plastic.

“… Not so much,” the person replied with something like relief, putting a rough bare hand against his cheek for a moment. “Get me a mobile isolation chamber,” the voice started to fade like the person was getting further away, “…extremely radioactive.”

 

_“Cap, can you walk?” Gabe whispered as the other men tried to radio in._

_“I’m not hurt,” Steve sniffled, wiping at his nose with the frozen sleeve of his uniform and leaving a frosty trail across his face._

_“Sure you are,” Gabe said, looking at him like one might look when consoling a child._

_“I-” Steve swallowed thickly, “I have no right,” he heard his voice start to break into something high-pitched and wretched and tried to rein it in._

_“Come on now,” Gabe put a hand on Steve’s back and rubbed once, awkwardly. “You have every right.”_

_“People are lost every day,” Steve whispered tightly through his teeth. “And this was my fault, I could have-”_

_“Cap…” Monty called cautiously. Steve turned and tried to make his back straight despite the ache settling quickly between his shoulder blades. Monty worried his lower lip before continuing. “They want to know where the body is.”_

 

“Ah-” Steve gasped, clutching at the sharp point of pain in the crook of his arm. “AH!” he gasped again, eyes shooting open as the poking persisted higher up.

“Captain Rogers, calm down,” an unfamiliar and heavily accented voice said, floating in the blurs around him. The sharp point of pain faded to a dull ache and calm washed over him.

“Where’s Bucky?” he mumbled, trying to force his eyes to focus and only catching glimpses of yellow and orange in a sea of grey. He found he had no urge to fight where he was despite the strangeness and let his eyes shut in defeat.

“He wants to know where Barnes is,” someone else hissed.

 

_“I don’t know,” Steve said, staring at the ground. “He… He fell. Out of the train car. It… It was fast.”_

_“There was a ravine for a couple of miles between tunnels from what I saw while I was on top of the train,” Gabe said lowly, his back to Steve._

_Horror briefly washed over Monty’s face before he turned back to the radio and relayed the information._

_“They want us back at camp immediately,” he announced. “They will pick us up at the previously agreed upon location two miles east of here. The general and Miss Carter will be waiting for a report.”_

_Steve looked up at the mention of Peggy, wondering if he’d be able to keep it together in front of her, at least._

 

“He’s doing well, Doctor Banner. I have to say that’s probably thanks to you.”

“And Ultron, so let’s not start naming heroes,” Bruce replied, his voice close and dry.

Steve’s eyelids resisted like they’d been glued together when he tried to open them. His vision was hazy and everything was too bright when he succeeded. He reached out blindly towards the left, trying to verify through touch that Bruce was there.

“Hey there,” Bruce said, catching Steve’s hand with his own and patting it. There was rough cloth covering one of his hands, like a bandage. “How lucid are you?”

“Um?” Steve felt his voice scrape out of his throat. “What happened?”

“You told Tony to detonate the bomb we set up to kill Ultron,” Bruce replied casually, placing Steve’s hand to rest on his chest, which he found was bare, and leaving it there with a pat. There was the sound of liquid being poured and then a hand slid behind Steve’s neck. “Sit up a little and drink this.”

Steve complied, tilting his head up and putting his lips on the rim of the cup. As soon as the liquid made it into his throat Steve gagged, spitting it back out across his chest.

“ _Shit,_ ” he thought he heard Bruce whisper.

“Steve, how are you feeling?” he asked, his voice edging into cautiousness.

“Nauseous,” Steve replied honestly, blinking once slowly before letting his eyes shut against the vertigo. “Awful.” He coughed wetly.

“Shit,” he definitely heard Bruce say, “Get Alfarr!”

 

_“Steve,” Peggy greeted him when the flap of the tent closed behind him._

_When he met her eyes, her face was twisted into something between confusion and grief. She wasn’t wearing makeup and her hair had been carelessly tossed into a ponytail, and her eyes were ringed dark in the harsh light from the lantern in the corner. Her uniform was slightly askew, wrinkled in a way it never had been before._

_Steve nodded once at her, bracing for questions._

_“Captain Rogers,” she began again carefully. Steve grimaced. “How… are you feeling?”_

_He ran a thumb under one of his eyes in a desire to fidget that came too quickly to suppress, rubbing at skin that was puffy and sore after the cold and wind and tears. He shook his head, trying to find the words._

_“Not,” he cleared his throat. “Not great, Ma’am,” he replied quietly._

_“He’s hardly the first you’ve lost, Rogers, and that’s hardly a relevant question, Carter,” General Phillips said. “Shape up and tell us what happened, son.”_

_Steve clenched his jaw. “With all due respect, Sir,” he began lowly._

_“With all due respect, General,” Peggy interrupted, “I think now is not the best time for this discussion.”_

_“As you said before,” Phillips said, raising an eyebrow. “Listen, I just need to know what happened before he forgets it.”_

_“With all due respect, Sir,” Steve said again, the acidity in his voice adding to the disrespect of speaking out of turn. He found it harder to care than usual. “I don’t think I’ll forget any time soon.”_

_“I think that’s reason enough to delay this until morning,” Peggy said crisply, something like smugness twitching at the corners of her mouth._

                                                                                                                                     

“For the last time, no,” Bruce said, sighing, “He’s still way too dangerous. And- and _you_. You shouldn’t even be walking around. You should be in timeout. Or jail. Where’s Pepper, anyway?”

“I just had to… I had to come check on him,” Tony said, sounding faraway and staticky.

“He’s fading in and out, Tony. I don’t know what else to tell you. Go away.”

“I’m starting to freak out. Like, I’m _really_ starting to freak out. Jesus, Bruce, I- what the hell did I do detonating that thing?”

“It’s not your fault,” Bruce said calmly. “I mean, the whole situation kind of is, but in this specific instance Steve thought going after Bucky was worth it. He understood the risks. He chose this, not you.”

“Doesn’t feel that way.”

 

_“It’s not your fault, you know,” Peggy said softly._

_“Did you write the report?” Steve sniffed roughly and wiped at his nose. He couldn’t look her in the eye._

_“I did.”_

_“Then you know that’s not true.”_

_“You did everything you could,” she sounded so sure of it that Steve had to shake his head and smile. His face ached after being set in a scowl for so long._

 

“Steve, if you’re in there, I need you to sit up. You’re heavy,” Bruce mumbled into his ear. Hands were pressing at Steve’s upper back and over his sternum.

Steve struggled to comply, finally blinking his eyes open successfully as he moved.

“Oh- I. Thank you.”

“What’s…?” Steve mumbled, trying to focus on the blur he thought was Bruce.

“You’re running a really high fever. We’re going to have to put you in some ice.”

Water suddenly rushed over his legs and Steve took a sharp breath.

_So cold, too cold, water filling his lungs-_

 

“Steve, whoa, whoa, alright, no ice!” Bruce gasped.

Steve blinked a few more times, vision coming clearer. He breathed out shakily and turned his head sluggishly to take in his surroundings.

He was in a small lab with bare metal walls save for a small panel of glass high up and a wide metal door with a single window. The window had a large radioactive symbol on it. Looking down, he found himself in a tub a quarter full of freezing water. He was nearly naked and shivering with a hand clenched in the front of Bruce’s shirt.

“Am I… okay?” he asked cautiously, unclenching his fist with some difficulty and releasing Bruce. Bruce stood up straight abruptly and moved back a foot or so from the edge of the tub.

“Uh, you seem to be right now,” he replied, surprisingly unruffled. “Not so much yesterday. Or, uh, the day before that.”

“What happened to me?” Steve licked his lips and tried to swallow, but his mouth and throat were like a desert. He let his head fall back against the edge of the tub. “Last thing I remember, I should be dead. Wait- what year is it?”

“You barely aren’t dead, but it’s only been a few days,” Bruce replied with a low chuckle. “You’re practically glowing, Steve. You were maybe two-thousand feet from a nuclear explosion. I’m the only one allowed in here even with protective gear. Oh- not to mention the small fact that a _building_ fell on you. I wouldn't try to count your broken bones just yet.”

“Ultron…?” Steve asked, thinking the threat must be gone if he was awake and Bruce was there.

“Deprogrammed, disassembled, and taken care of,” Bruce replied with a wan smile, “Plan H went off without a hitch.” He sat heavily in a chair to Steve’s left and sighed. He took his glasses off to rub at his forehead and put them on a nearby table.

“…Bucky?” Steve whispered, finally unable to stop himself.

Bruce’s face split in one of the biggest smiles Steve had ever seen him wear.

“He got off better than you did, actually.”

Steve let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and smiled a little back.

“How is that even possible?” he ran a hand weakly over his face. “Ultron should have been able to resist way more radiation than me or Bucky.”

“I could really get into it, but I don’t think you’re up for that right now.”

“Okay,” Steve nodded, letting his eyes shut tiredly. “I agree. I owe you one lecture. I’m exhausted.”

“You’ve been vomiting blood and peeling layers of radiation soaked skin for four days, I’m surprised you’re this lucid,” Bruce replied with a little chuckle. “You need as much rest as you can get. I’ve got you on some really heavy medication Thor called in a favor for and you should be fit to be in the company of people other than me in a couple more days.”

“Excellent,” Steve muttered. “How’s everyone else?”

“Everyone is fine, Steve. Everyone that was in a five to ten miles radius needs a couple doses of Potassium Iodine or Prussian Blue, but nobody else is in as bad a shape as you.”

“Good. Good…”

\--

“Stevie,” Bucky wheezed, practically slamming himself down into Steve’s chest.

The air left Steve’s lungs in a rush at the impact but Bucky held fast, especially as the wheelchair started to roll backwards. He managed to get his arm around Steve’s neck and regain some traction on the tile floor, his boots squeaking. He righted himself as much as he could and pressed his lips to Steve’s in a grinning kiss.

“Hello to you, too,” Steve said as Bucky pulled back clumsily.

“Sorry,” Bucky was grinning from ear to ear down at Steve, not looking sorry in the slightest. “I’m just happy you’re out of that cell and we’re both mostly intact and it’s only been a few days instead of a few decades.”

 

_“Hey, Bucky,” Steve couldn’t help the watery grin the split his face despite the blank glare Bucky gave in return. “It’s nice to see you out of that cell,” he offered a gentler smile but still Bucky’s face remained glassed over._

_Bucky blinked once, slowly. “I know you,” he said, voice rough with disuse. “Your name is Steve.”_

_“Yeah,” Steve grinned again, brilliant and face-aching in its intensity. “Yeah, that’s me. I’m going to take you home with me, okay?”_

_Bucky nodded once._

 

“I’m just happy for a change of scenery, but you’re nice too,” Steve smiled back and his chuckle rattled dryly in his chest. He coughed a little and Bucky’s face fell.

“I really am sorry if I was too rough. I’m still kinda off balance,” Bucky’s smile was thin and mirthless this time. He gestured to his left where his t-shirt sleeve was pinned close to his body.

“At least you aren’t radioactive?” Steve offered. Bucky snorted.

“The fucking Hydra scientists did one thing right, at least.”

 

_“He’s resistant to all of our medications,” the former SHIELD doctor said from behind a medical history folder with ‘CLASSIFIED” stamped on the front in red. Bucky’s face could vaguely be seen through the folder with the intensity of the lights. “The tox screen doesn’t even work on his blood- it doesn’t register as entirely human.”_

_“What does that mean…?” Steve asked, glancing at Bucky sitting in the chair across the debriefing room._

_“It means they don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Natasha said, receiving a glare from the doctor._

_“Hydra burned their records when they saw things start to go south, so we don’t have the information on exactly what they did to him. Either way, we think he’s safe for you to take home-”_

_“You_ think _?” Steve gaped. “You already said-”_

 

“Their preparing for nuclear warfare really helped me out, huh?”

“You shouldn’t have needed the ‘help’, and that’s not what I’d call what they did anyway,” Steve grumbled, resting his elbow on the armrest of his wheelchair and putting his cheek in his hand. “You shouldn’t have left base camp.”

“Oh, here we go. Coming from _you_ ,” Bucky raised an eyebrow. “That’s real rich, pal. Come on, we don’t have time to get into this. We can bitch at each other and tally dangerous stunts later. The others are dying to see you. I thought Tony was going to ask to have his bed moved to the observation deck with how much he was there. I’ve never seen a person entirely kept alive by guilt and anxiety before, it’s kind of amazing-”

“No, we do have time,” Steve insisted. “What were you even thinking?”

Bucky rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall, resigning himself to the fact that he was stuck in the conversation now. Steve felt small again with Bucky looking down at him like that and simultaneously relished in it and wished he was strong enough to stand up on his own for longer than thirty seconds.

“Well,” Bucky drawled, “I guess my thought process was something like: ‘Holy shit, Steve’s gonna die. Holy shit. Shit. Fuck’.”

“Buck,” Steve sighed.

“You woulda done the same- no wait. You _have_ done the same.”

“Well I wasn’t just recently cleared for duty again after being brainwashed and-”

“But you _were_ new to the army and had very minimal training before you became a showgirl.”

“You have a point.”

“So do you. Can we be done?” Bucky’s shoulders slumped forward and his mouth turned down at the corners. “I really don’t want to fight. I’m too tired to fight.”

“Alright,” Steve agreed. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“And I’m glad you’re going to be,” Bucky mumbled, bending down so he could rest his chin on the crown of Steve’s head. His lips pressed a kiss there and his arm wrapped around Steve’s shoulder.

 “So will everyone’s kids be mutants now?” Steve asked just to change the subject, remembering that the twins had said something about the X Gene having to do with irradiated parents.

“I dunno,” Bucky chuckled into Steve’s hair. “I doubt any of us are any kind of fertile anymore- and no one has any weird mutations or extra limbs so far. Obviously,” he wiggled his arm around Steve’s neck. The angle was getting uncomfortably awkward and Steve helped steady him so he could stand.

“You’re hilarious,” Steve started wheeling himself towards the elevator. “Let’s go see everyone. I’d hate for the next ulcer Tony develops to be my fault.”

“Oh don’t lie. You’d love that. He names them like hurricanes, you know. Ulcer Jack Daniels. Ulcer Afghanistan. Ulcer Steve.”

“Absolutely hilarious,” Steve said dryly. “Help me turn?” he was struggling to get the wheelchair at the right angle to get into the elevator.

“Sure,” Bucky pushed at the difficult side and helped get Steve through the doors.

“What would I do without you?” Steve said, smiling at his knees. He realized too late that it wasn’t entirely a casual thing to say.

“What would _I_ do without _you_ is a better question,” Bucky muttered back.

When Steve looked up, he was staring hard at his feet.

 

 

 


End file.
